Open role
ArtDirector
Space (sp-ce.co) · Remote · Full-time
TL;DR
- —Space, an AI-native brand agency, is hiring a remote Art Director to sit one seat from the Creative Director, with no juniors, no status meetings, and no production drudgework.
- —Image engines render hundreds of directions inside systems the Art Director authors, and nothing ships without a human yes.
- —The role owns craft: identity systems, campaign worlds, and sites made end to end, with the Art Director's name on every published case study.
- —There is no spec pitch work, no feedback filtered through an account layer, no timesheets, and no resizing marathons; compensation is scoped in the first conversation.
- —Applying is three questions in a short form: one piece you shipped and now hate, the best idea you ever cut, and one thing in culture that makes you jealous.
01
About Space
Space is an AI-native brand agency. Three always-on leaders, 82 on-demand specialists, zero juniors. 127 agents, 362 agentic workflows, 14 tools we built ourselves. We ship brand identities, websites, campaigns, and products for funded companies in weeks: Validere got strategy, a full rebrand, and a new site in 8 weeks, lifted inbound 31%, and closed a $43M Series B on the story. We grow entirely by word of mouth, and we publish our AI rules, our hiring bar, and our pricing logic at sp-ce.co/notes, because an agency that won't tell you where AI stops is telling you it doesn't know.
02
The job
You'll make the work: identity systems drawn to the pixel, campaign worlds, sites, and the image systems a brand lives inside for years. Our engines render hundreds of on-brand directions inside systems you author, and nothing ships without your yes.
You'll sit one seat from the Creative Director, with no layers between: they hold the final verdict, you hold the craft, and the arguments between those two things are where the good work comes from. Until that chair fills (the posting is live too), you'll work directly with the three founders. Either way, at Space a named human stands behind every pixel that ships, and on the making, that human is you.
03
What you'll do
Craft identity systems, campaign worlds, and sites end to end, from first sketch to shipped pixel, in sprints measured in weeks.
Direct our image engines the way the last generation directed photoshoots: cast the light, the grain, the era, and the mood, then reject everything that's merely fine.
Author the visual systems our Brand OS and image tools run on, so a client's next thousand assets inherit your standards without you in the room.
Let go of your own darlings before anyone asks. Keep a running list of every direction you passed on, with the reason.
Argue craft with the Creative Director, eye to eye. Sometimes you'll win, and the work will be better for both outcomes.
Raise the visual bar on 82 senior specialists without a single direct report to hide behind.
04
What you won't do
Grind through production. The forty-seven banner crops, the platform versions, the deck formatting, the files with layers named Layer 47 copy 12: machine work here, permanently.
Manage juniors. There are none. Nobody learns the craft on a client's budget here.
Watch your work presented as someone else's vision. Every case study we publish names its makers.
Build spec creative to win a pitch. We grow by referral, and the shipped work does the selling. Your weekends stay yours.
Hear feedback fourth-hand. Client reactions reach you firsthand, never summarized through an account layer.
Sit in status meetings or log timesheets. The agents write the status; fixed fees retired the timesheet.
05
Who you are
Senior. You've shipped identity systems, campaigns, and sites a stranger could pick out of a lineup, ideally for challengers who couldn't outspend anyone.
The owner of the eye. You see the half-point of bad tracking from across the room, and you know when to let it go. That judgment is the seniority.
A systems maker. Your work still looks like itself in the four-thousandth asset, because you design the system, never just the hero image.
Level 4 or above on our published AI Fluency Ladder: models chained, workflows built, outputs QA'd before they ship. You'll reach Level 5 within six months, because the floor here rises.
06
Who you aren't
A prompt jockey who calls a lucky render a style. Generating isn't directing.
Anonymous. Your name goes on everything that ships here, and we treat that as the perk it is.
Level 2 on the ladder: someone who ships whatever the model returns. That's worse than not using AI at all, and we said so in print.
07 · No resume required
How to apply
No cover letter. No 90-page portfolio PDF. No resume upload, even. The application is three questions:
One piece of work you shipped and now hate, with the reason. Two hundred words max.
The best idea you ever cut, and why it was right to cut it.
One thing in culture right now that makes you jealous.
Use AI to answer if you like; we do. We'll be able to tell whether you reviewed it.
Comeargue.
Frequently asked questions
It replaced the production. Volume is free now, which made the standard the scarce thing. This job is the standard.
Both, unapologetically. The role is real and open; the posting argues the model, because the model is the job.
The Creative Director holds the final verdict across every engagement. The Art Director owns the craft: making the work, directing the engines, and setting the visual standard. The two argue as equals and the verdict breaks ties.
No. Space is remote by design; the leadership is New York-based and the standard is location-independent.
Because the seat is sized to the person in it. You'll hear a real range in the first conversation, before you've invested anything beyond the three answers.
AI embedded in daily workflows: chaining models, building custom workflows, automating execution, and quality-checking every output before it ships. It's the minimum bar for joining Space. The full ladder is published at sp-ce.co/notes/ai-fluency-ladder.
A named human reads all three answers. If they're real, we call you.